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In RMS world there would be less software so less ways for people to express themselves freely. Photoshop frees a lot of people from the inability to express th

by Joeri 9y ago

In RMS world there would be less software so less ways for people to express themselves freely. Photoshop frees a lot of people from the inability to express themselves in the exact way they want. In RMS world all software woud be GPL licensed, including photoshop. In his view there are other ways software companies can make money than selling licenses, and it is up to their customers to demand them to do that. It's impractical to be sure, but crazier things have happened given enough time.

rglullis 9y ago
In RMS' world Photoshop wouldn't even come to existence.
- teekert 9y ago
  The question is indeed: would Adobe have created Photoshop in RMS world. It's very short sighted to think everything else would be the same except for software licenses.
  - loup-vaillant 9y ago
    In a capitalistic society where proprietary software were forbidden, we may not have Photoshop. To me, that indicates a problem with capitalism itself.
    - sokoloff 9y ago
      In a capitalist world where food could not be sold or traded for consideration, I believe we would obviously not have restaurants/supermarkets and it seems very likely either more people would need to be farmers and/or more people would starve. Is that also a problem with capitalism, or a problem with "not capitalism"?
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - loup-vaillant 9y ago
        I was just saying that if capitalism requires proprietary software, then capitalism has a problem. The unstated (yet obvious) assumption was that proprietary software is evil. I'm not sure food trade is evil. Forbidding it doesn't make much sense to me. Regulating it however makes a whole lot of sense. But we already do. Isn't the cold war finished by now? Surely there could be viable alternatives to the current corporate capitalism veering cyberpunk?
        sokoloff 9y ago
        Capitalism doesn't require proprietary software, but it enables it.
        loup-vaillant 9y ago
        A little good faith, will you? The idea was that capitalism gives you a choice between proprietary, shitty, or non-existent software. Not much of a choice. Photoshop is often showed as an example where free alternatives aren't up to snuff (I personally don't have an opinion on this one). Hence the short "requires".
        sokoloff 9y ago
        It's not for a lack of good faith in interpreting your words (IMO), but a genuine difference of opinion on a critical point. I don't view software on a spectrum from proprietary through shitty to non-existent. I view it more as a two-by-two matrix of high quality/shitty on one axis and FOSS/proprietary on the other. All four quadrants are populated. The economic incentives that capitalism and proprietary software provide allow for the massive investments that Adobe is able to make in Photoshop/CSuite, by providing a clear path to financial returns on those investments. In the 22 years since GIMP started, it hasn't caught Photoshop. (There are many other examples where free or open source software has caught and surpassed the proprietary alternatives/previous market leaders.)
- newscracker 9y ago
  Just in the image management space, we do have GIMP [1], Inkscape [2], Krita [3], just to name a few FOSS applications using GPL that come to my mind right now, among many others. Photoshop may probably not have come into existence in RMS's world, but that wouldn't have precluded any of these from coming up (even if they appear not to be of the same caliber or if they seem like clones of proprietary applications). Your statement would've made a lot of sense probably several decades ago though. [1]: https://www.gimp.org/about/ https://www.gimp.org/about/ [2]: https://inkscape.org/en/about/license/ https://inkscape.org/en/about/license/ [3]: https://docs.krita.org/KritaFAQ https://docs.krita.org/KritaFAQ
  - rglullis 9y ago
    As much as I am big supporter of FOSS - writing open source software as much as I can, financially support developers, and actively try to avoid proprietary solutions when there is an adequate free alternative - I am yet to see any kind of open-source software that is original or that it has managed to create a new industry on its own. All praise to GIMP, Inkscape and Krita, but they only exist because some proprietary software already existed and created the demand for an free alternative.
    - cyphar 9y ago
      That's true for proprietary software as well. Hell, most software is a remake of something that existed in the past. You can find examples of original free software projects that have caused real change (one that comes to mind is the whole Zones/Jails/Containers thing), but that's not really a good measure of whether free software is succeeding. There are countless free software projects that were created as alternatives to proprietary software and have exceeded the original by orders of magnitude. If you want to look at a measure of success other than "amount of work you can do with free software" then that's what you should be looking at. Improvement and innovation often doesn't come from some massive new technology, it's always gradual improvements that really make the difference.
      - rglullis 9y ago
- snakeanus 9y ago
  And this is a good thing.

by Joeri 9y ago

rglullis 9y ago

In RMS' world Photoshop wouldn't even come to existence.

teekert 9y ago
The question is indeed: would Adobe have created Photoshop in RMS world. It's very short sighted to think everything else would be the same except for software licenses.
- loup-vaillant 9y ago
  In a capitalistic society where proprietary software were forbidden, we may not have Photoshop. To me, that indicates a problem with capitalism itself.
  - sokoloff 9y ago
    In a capitalist world where food could not be sold or traded for consideration, I believe we would obviously not have restaurants/supermarkets and it seems very likely either more people would need to be farmers and/or more people would starve. Is that also a problem with capitalism, or a problem with "not capitalism"?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - loup-vaillant 9y ago
      I was just saying that if capitalism requires proprietary software, then capitalism has a problem. The unstated (yet obvious) assumption was that proprietary software is evil. I'm not sure food trade is evil. Forbidding it doesn't make much sense to me. Regulating it however makes a whole lot of sense. But we already do. Isn't the cold war finished by now? Surely there could be viable alternatives to the current corporate capitalism veering cyberpunk?
      - sokoloff 9y ago
        Capitalism doesn't require proprietary software, but it enables it.
        loup-vaillant 9y ago
        A little good faith, will you? The idea was that capitalism gives you a choice between proprietary, shitty, or non-existent software. Not much of a choice. Photoshop is often showed as an example where free alternatives aren't up to snuff (I personally don't have an opinion on this one). Hence the short "requires".
        sokoloff 9y ago
        It's not for a lack of good faith in interpreting your words (IMO), but a genuine difference of opinion on a critical point. I don't view software on a spectrum from proprietary through shitty to non-existent. I view it more as a two-by-two matrix of high quality/shitty on one axis and FOSS/proprietary on the other. All four quadrants are populated. The economic incentives that capitalism and proprietary software provide allow for the massive investments that Adobe is able to make in Photoshop/CSuite, by providing a clear path to financial returns on those investments. In the 22 years since GIMP started, it hasn't caught Photoshop. (There are many other examples where free or open source software has caught and surpassed the proprietary alternatives/previous market leaders.)
newscracker 9y ago
Just in the image management space, we do have GIMP [1], Inkscape [2], Krita [3], just to name a few FOSS applications using GPL that come to my mind right now, among many others. Photoshop may probably not have come into existence in RMS's world, but that wouldn't have precluded any of these from coming up (even if they appear not to be of the same caliber or if they seem like clones of proprietary applications). Your statement would've made a lot of sense probably several decades ago though. [1]: https://www.gimp.org/about/ https://www.gimp.org/about/ [2]: https://inkscape.org/en/about/license/ https://inkscape.org/en/about/license/ [3]: https://docs.krita.org/KritaFAQ https://docs.krita.org/KritaFAQ
- rglullis 9y ago
  As much as I am big supporter of FOSS - writing open source software as much as I can, financially support developers, and actively try to avoid proprietary solutions when there is an adequate free alternative - I am yet to see any kind of open-source software that is original or that it has managed to create a new industry on its own. All praise to GIMP, Inkscape and Krita, but they only exist because some proprietary software already existed and created the demand for an free alternative.
  - cyphar 9y ago
    That's true for proprietary software as well. Hell, most software is a remake of something that existed in the past. You can find examples of original free software projects that have caused real change (one that comes to mind is the whole Zones/Jails/Containers thing), but that's not really a good measure of whether free software is succeeding. There are countless free software projects that were created as alternatives to proprietary software and have exceeded the original by orders of magnitude. If you want to look at a measure of success other than "amount of work you can do with free software" then that's what you should be looking at. Improvement and innovation often doesn't come from some massive new technology, it's always gradual improvements that really make the difference.
    - rglullis 9y ago
snakeanus 9y ago
And this is a good thing.